Photographic package printing requires the production of a number of sets of photoprints, each set in a variety of sizes, from selected film exposures, herein referred to as negatives, on film rolls which include the several exposures taken of a number of persons. The conventional way of making up package photoprint orders requires the essentially manual operation of selecting the negatives to be photoprinted and positioning them in the photo-printer. In contrast, the photoprinting itself is a sophisticated operation, the print assortments being made by a package photoprinter, such as made by Nord Photo Engineering Co., directed and controlled by a computerized printer-controller, preferably of the type made by Bremson Data Systems, Inc. The operator key-inputs the order into the computerized printer-controller; this then directs the photoprinter in making the number of photoprints of each size called for by the order.
Systems have been proposed, and to some extent used, to automate the order-inputting operation, leaving the film in roll form. In one such system, a digital cassette tape is made up, whose flow is to be synchronized with the transport of the roll film through the photoprinter; when a selected negative is reached, the cassette tape inputs to the printer-controller the number and size of prints to be made. In another proposed system, magnetic strips, encoded with the information of orders for printing, are made up for adherence along the edge of the roll film, to be read by a magnetic reader as the film is unrolled in the photoprinter, the reading being similarly inputted to such printer-controller. To feed automated inputs to a printer-controller, instead of having an operator key-input the order information, is therefore known prior art. However, both of these systems, for automated input of order information from roll film, are believed to be fraught with many difficulties. Applicants know of no prior automated system using carriers for individual negatives.